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Right Thinking. Free Market. A Project of Americans for Limited Government.Wed, 21 Feb 2018 13:39:46 +0000enhourly1https://wordpress.org/?v=4.9.4Republicans need to use their Article I powershttp://netrightdaily.com/2018/02/republicans-need-use-article-powers/
http://netrightdaily.com/2018/02/republicans-need-use-article-powers/#respondWed, 21 Feb 2018 13:25:46 +0000http://netrightdaily.com/?p=41364By Natalia Castro To avert constant Democratic threats of a government shutdown, President Trump and Congress have been forced to pass short-term spending bills. The next deadline to pass funding is now March 23, and Congressional Republicans must use the time before them to outline key areas to save money, achieve policy objectives and reduce the deficit to ensure fiscal […]

To avert constant Democratic threats of a government shutdown, President Trump and Congress have been forced to pass short-term spending bills. The next deadline to pass funding is now March 23, and Congressional Republicans must use the time before them to outline key areas to save money, achieve policy objectives and reduce the deficit to ensure fiscal security moving forward.

President Donald Trump immediately expressed distaste for the Feb. 9 legislation which ended an overnight government shutdown; Trump admitted via Twitter, “Without more Republicans in Congress, we were forced to increase spending on things we do not like or want in order to finally, after many years of depletion, take care of our Military. Sadly, we needed some Dem votes for passage.”

The legislation, entitled the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2018, ends the spending caps on domestic and military spending, known as sequestration, for this fiscal year and the next by about $300 billion while lifting the federal debt limit until March 2019. While this averted a more protracted shutdown, it also angered conservatives in favor of fiscal austerity.

Before the March 23 deadline, Republicans must use their Article I power of the purse to defund government programs which are exacerbating our national debt and causing economic harm across the country.

Among the promised defunds which are continually funded under current spending measures are the new and existing power plant regulations, the Waters of the U.S. rule that regulates every puddle in America, methane emission regulations, sage grouse protections, Planned Parenthood funding, and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

The new and existing power plant regulations, a part of former President Barack Obama’s Clean Power Plan, waged a war on coal, making it much more expensive to do business in the U.S.

Obama’s methane emission regulations, implemented in Aug. 2016, places restrictions on the amount of gas released into the air during drilling operations on federal lands, placing a significant burden on producers while stifling innovation. This rule alone produced an estimated cost of $320 million in 2020 and $530 million in 2025, according to the Federal Register.

Similarly, the federal government protections of the sage grouse, a Western bird known for its flamboyant mating dance, have distorted the mission of the Department of Interior (DOI) and harmed U.S. energy security.

Despite not being considered an endangered species, the Obama era DOI instituted 98 sage grouse habitat management plans across ten states, marking a significant amount of land as protected spaces for the bird.

Congress must back the call from leaders in the Trump administration to reduce spending by defunding these unwanted programs — and then move to cut baseline spending if at all possible. Failing to adjust the baseline downward will only contribute to the burden of mounting debt.

Via Twitter, President Trump called for a simple solution to the country’s budgeting woes: elect more Republicans, since 60 votes are needed in the Senate to pass a spending measure. As Trump explained, “Costs on non-military lines will never come down if we do not elect more Republicans in the 2018 Election, and beyond. This Bill is a BIG VICTORY for our Military, but much waste in order to get Dem votes. Fortunately, DACA not included in this Bill, negotiations to start now!”

If Congress is going to implement the spending cuts our country needs, there are only two options — win over 60 Republicans in the Senate in the 2018 midterms or push the Democrats to the negotiating table. Either way, Congress must institute spending cuts this time around, no matter how difficult the path is to get there.

Natalia Castro is a contributing editor at Americans for Limited Government.

]]>http://netrightdaily.com/2018/02/republicans-need-use-article-powers/feed/0The truth behind the Flynn prosecution is starting to come out, and it is not good for Muellerhttp://netrightdaily.com/2018/02/truth-behind-flynn-prosecution-starting-come-not-good-mueller/
http://netrightdaily.com/2018/02/truth-behind-flynn-prosecution-starting-come-not-good-mueller/#respondWed, 21 Feb 2018 13:21:56 +0000http://netrightdaily.com/?p=41361By Printus LeBlanc On Friday, Special Counsel Robert Mueller announced the indictment of 13 Russian internet trolls and the companies they worked for. The timing was curious because it was a surprise announcement. Normally something leaks about an impending action, but there was no such leak this time. When you look at the few months the FBI has had, it […]

On Friday, Special Counsel Robert Mueller announced the indictment of 13 Russian internet trolls and the companies they worked for. The timing was curious because it was a surprise announcement. Normally something leaks about an impending action, but there was no such leak this time. When you look at the few months the FBI has had, it becomes understandable why they made the announcement. They wanted attention on something other than their recent failures. One of those failures seems to be the possibility former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn might withdraw his guilty plea, or his new judge may just throw it out altogether.

You may remember Flynn pled guilty to lying to the FBI on December 1, 2017. Flynn was interviewed by two FBI agents on January 24, 2017, in a meeting set up by former Deputy Director of the FBI Andrew McCabe. Since the guilty plea, a slew of revelations has called not just the guilty plea of Flynn, but the Mueller prosecution into question.

Shortly after Flynn pled guilty, Judge Rudolph Contreras was recused for a still unknown reason. What is known about Judge Contreras is he signed off on the initial Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrant to spy on Carter Page. The world learned from the Nunes Memo and the Graham-Grassley criminal referral that the FISA warrant was obtained using the Christopher Steele dossier, an unverified opposition research document by the former British spy working for the Clinton campaign in 2016.

This constituted a “fraud on the court.” Was Contreras recused because he signed the illegal FISA warrant that started the chain of events leading to Flynn’s prosecution, i.e., Fruit of the Poisonous Tree?

The new judge in the Flynn case is very familiar with government misconduct. Judge Emmet Sullivan presided over the prosecution of former Alaskan Senator Ted Stevens. Following the trial, a whistleblower came forward to allege misconduct by the FBI and DOJ. After review of the whistleblower’s evidence Judge Sullivan dismissed the corruption conviction of Stevens and lambasted the federal prosecutors stating, “In nearly 25 years on the bench, I’ve never seen anything approaching the mishandling and misconduct that I’ve seen in this case.” He would go on to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate the DOJ lawyers that prosecuted the case.

The government’s misconduct in Steven’s case was so egregious Judge Sullivan changed the way he handled cases. He now issues a Brady Order in every criminal case before his court. In the 2016 Cardozo Law Review, he stated, “Following the Stevens case, I have issued a standing Brady Order for each criminal case on my docket, updating it in reaction to developments in the law.”

Brady material consists of exculpatory or impeaching evidence held by the prosecution that is material to the guilt or innocence of the defendant. The Supreme Court ruled in Brady v. Maryland that the material must be turned over to the defendant if they request it, not doing so violates due process.

This is troublesome for the Mueller team considering the “pitbull” of his team, Andrew Weissmann has a sordid history of judicial malpractice. He convinced an employee of Arthur Anderson to plead guilty to something that wasn’t a crime. Mr. Weissmann was also overturned by the Fifth Circuit after making up a crime to indict four Merrill Lynch executives. And just last week it was revealed Weissmann was involved in another case in which Brady material was withheld in late 1990s. How does someone that routinely violates the civil rights of defendants continue to rise in the DOJ?

Last week we learned the FBI agents that interviewed Flynn didn’t believe he was lying. In a report from Byron York of the Washington Examiner he states, “two sources familiar with the meetings, Comey told lawmakers that the FBI agents who interviewed Flynn did not believe that Flynn had lied to them, or that any inaccuracies in his answers were intentional. As a result, some of those in attendance came away with the impression that Flynn would not be charged with a crime pertaining to the Jan. 24 interview.”

If the two agents that interviewed Michael Flynn didn’t believe he lied, why was he charged with lying?

Many people are asking if Flynn didn’t believe he lied, why would he plead guilty? The answer is simple, the weight of the federal government. The federal government does not run out of money when prosecuting someone. However, a private citizen cannot afford a $500 an hour lawyer for too long.

Former federal prosecutor Sydney Powell recently wrote an op-ed about the Flynn prosecution and an innocent person pleading guilty stating, “they simply can no longer withstand the unimaginable stress of a criminal investigation. They and their families suffer sheer exhaustion in every form — financial, physical, mental, and emotional. Add in a little prosecutorial duress — like the threat of indicting your son — and, presto, there’s a guilty plea.”

The recent revelations about the validity of the charges, the FISA warrants, and orders by the new judge call the entire Flynn prosecution into question. He should withdraw his guilty plea, as this ongoing miscarriage of justice is doing great damage to the nation. Judge Sullivan is a jurist that refuses to put up with government maleficence in his courtroom and could be the worst nightmare for the Mueller team, but Flynn has to fight.

Printus LeBlanc is a contributing editor at Americans for Limited Government.

]]>http://netrightdaily.com/2018/02/truth-behind-flynn-prosecution-starting-come-not-good-mueller/feed/0Is a Government Agency’s Bad Science a Gift to Trial Lawyers?https://townhall.com/columnists/rickmanning/2018/02/15/is-a-government-agencys-bad-science-a-gift-to-trial-lawyers-n2449218
https://townhall.com/columnists/rickmanning/2018/02/15/is-a-government-agencys-bad-science-a-gift-to-trial-lawyers-n2449218#respondTue, 20 Feb 2018 13:11:19 +0000http://netrightdaily.com/?p=41355By Rick Manning In Greek mythology, Helen of Troy was the face that launched a thousand ships. When she left her husband, King Menelaus of Sparta for her lover Prince Paris of Troy, the Trojan War broke out that is mythologized by Homer, Virgil and others. Of course, Troy fell after the Greeks rolled a hollowed-out wooden horse into their […]

In Greek mythology, Helen of Troy was the face that launched a thousand ships. When she left her husband, King Menelaus of Sparta for her lover Prince Paris of Troy, the Trojan War broke out that is mythologized by Homer, Virgil and others. Of course, Troy fell after the Greeks rolled a hollowed-out wooden horse into their walled city as a gift. A horse filled with Greek warriors who opened the gates -ending Troy. Or so the story goes.

In modern America, there is a little-known government entity, the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), which is an arm of the Center for Disease Control. NIOSH has launched more than 1,000 lawsuits costing companies hundreds of millions of dollars over the past fifteen years due to their determination that a naturally occurring as well as synthetically produced chemical, diacetyl, is linked to injuries and deaths involving microwave popcorn workers among others.

There is only one problem – their science may not be right.

So what is diacetyl? It is a naturally occurring chemical that is found in low concentrations of fermented foods like butter, beer and yogurt. It is also made synthetically to add buttery flavor to popcorn, chips and even coffee. Safe to eat in trace amounts, according to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the question is what quantity of the chemical is safe to inhale.

Bronchiolitis obliterans also known as popcorn lung is no joke, despite its almost comic book descriptor, but it is reasonable to ask whether NIOSH jumped the gun when they created the wave of lawsuits based upon their findings.

Years after the initial NIOSH finding, the Toxicology Excellence for Risk Assessment (TERA) produced a 2008 report, which casts strong doubt on whether diacetyl is actually the villain that NIOSH and trial lawyers have made it out to be. TERA states, “The causal link between diacetyl and the onset of bronchiolitis obliterans is not certain.”

NIOSH itself is listed among the recent sponsors of TERA at the outset of its report, so while the funding came from the food industry, it is safe to conclude that the contrary conclusion to NIOSH’s earlier findings should be taken seriously.

Additionally, the highly respected chemical toxicology firm, Cardno ChemRisk, has studied the impacts of diacetyl extensively over the past decade. In a study published in Critical Reviews on Toxicology, they wrote, “We found that diacetyl and 2,3-pentanedione exposures from cigarette smoking far exceed occupational exposures for most food/flavoring workers who smoke.” One line down they continue, “Further, because smoking has not been shown to be a risk factor for bronchiolitis obliterans, our findings are inconsistent with claims that diacetyl and/or 2,3-pentanedione exposure are risk factors for this disease.”

The argument against NIOSH’s findings can even be found within the Obama administration’s Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), where after eight years of controversy over regulating diacetyl, they chose not to regulate the chemical in the workplace. When Obama’s radical OSHA decides not to act, it should serve as a touch point for trying to get to the real truth of the matter.

Meanwhile, like the Trojan War of old, the trial lawyer bar is besieging the walls of business on many fronts, looking for weaknesses that might allow them to hit a massive payday. When it comes to diacetyl lawsuits, NIOSH is the Trojan horse that has been wheeled behind those walls, unleashing a horde of trial lawyers looking for industries to sue. It doesn’t matter to them whether diacetyl is the agent of illness, only that they can convince a jury, using NIOSH as their lead witness, that it does.

Given the fact that there is serious and reasonable doubt about the causal factors of bronchiolitis obliterans, combined with the Obama Administration’s determination to not impose workplace standards, it is time for a common sense approach to diacetyl.

Bruce Fein, a former senior ranking Reagan Administration official recommends that the federal government set up a process similar to the one undertaken in 1977 in examining saccharin. He wrote in the West Virginia Record, “In 1977, the FDA proposed a ban on saccharin as a human carcinogen required by the Delany Amendment. Congress balked. It passed the Saccharin Study and Labelling Act which placed a moratorium on the ban but required labels warning that saccharin could cause cancer. After two decades of further study, the National Toxicology Program delisted saccharin as a carcinogen in 2000.

This seems like a reasonable approach to what heretofore has been an intractable problem that NIOSH and the credibility of the federal government have been used as the cudgel in legal cases, when their determinations are disputed by multiple respected alternative studies.

It’s time to get to the right answer on diacetyl, rather than having the trial bar use one agency’s claims, that another agency of government has chosen not to act upon, to drive businesses engaged in innocuous activity like grinding coffee beans into legal hell.

]]>http://netrightdaily.com/2018/02/cartoon-schumer-shutdown-part-ii/feed/0If we are going to spend the money anyway, let’s spend it to harden the electric grid from an EMPhttp://netrightdaily.com/2018/02/going-spend-money-anyway-lets-spend-harden-electric-grid-emp/
http://netrightdaily.com/2018/02/going-spend-money-anyway-lets-spend-harden-electric-grid-emp/#respondMon, 19 Feb 2018 12:56:57 +0000http://netrightdaily.com/?p=41345By Printus LeBlanc Earlier this month, conservatives and budget hawks lost the fiscal battle to fund the military without raising domestic spending. The Senate cut a deal to increase domestic spending for the next two years by $131 billion and raise the budget caps on defense spending by $80 billion in fiscal year 2018 and $85 billion in fiscal year […]

Earlier this month, conservatives and budget hawks lost the fiscal battle to fund the military without raising domestic spending. The Senate cut a deal to increase domestic spending for the next two years by $131 billion and raise the budget caps on defense spending by $80 billion in fiscal year 2018 and $85 billion in fiscal year 2019.

This battle is over, and it is time to move on to the next one, what to do with the $131 billion. Democrats will want to add the two-year increase in spending to the baseline budget, thereby making the increases permanent. Republicans must make sure that does not happen and if the money is going to be spent, instead appropriate the money to one-time non-baseline budget projects. The weakness of the U.S. electric grid is one such item, the perfect project to spend the money on.

The U.S. is a society wholly dependent on electricity to survive. Water is pumped into your homes by electricity. Vehicles may run on gas, but the gas gets to the vehicles via pump powered by electricity. The food in the local supermarket is kept cool, transported, and produced with electricity. Without it, tens of millions would die.

The U.S. electric grid is composed of three smaller grids, one east of the Rocky Mountains, one west of the Rocky Mountains, and one in Texas. Each of these grids is composed of three elements, power generation, power transmission, and power distribution. It is no secret there are weak points in the system. Congress even put out a report outlining what it believed was the most dangerous scenario in 2008.

Electricity is starts at a power plant. It can be coal fired, natural gas, nuclear, or a windmill. From there the electricity flows to a High-Voltage Transformer (HVT). The HVT will “step-up” the electricity so it can be transported long distances via high voltage power lines. From the high voltage power lines, the electricity flows into another HVT where it is “stepped-down.” This is a critical process because homes and businesses cannot handle the higher-level voltage used to transport electricity. After the electricity flows through the second HVT, it is transmitted via local powerlines to the end user.

As you can see, the process of getting electricity from the point of production to the end user would be impossible without HVTs, and the problem gets worse from there. Producing an HVT is a time consuming and expensive endeavor. The Department of Energy estimated it can take up to 20 months to make the larger HTVs, while costing millions. After it is produced, transporting the HVT is another adventure. The larger devices can weigh up to 400 tons and need specially designed rail cars to move via railroad. Once they are on the road, it can be even more challenging to move the house sized objects though cities to the substations.

The final problem with HVTs is they are made for specific locations in the electric grid. Because the electric grid is made up of hundreds of smaller utilities, within the three main grids, there is no uniformity. An HVT for a coal plant outside of Mobile, AL might not work for natural gas plant near Houston, TX. This hampers the ability to interchange parts during an emergency.

The HVTs are vulnerable to four types of attacks:

EMP- An Electromagnetic Pulse is generated as a result of a nuclear bomb. It is a burst of electromagnetic energy that damages electrical equipment, such as the Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) systems regulating the voltage in HVTs. If the SCADA systems go down, the HVTs go down.

CME- The sun is perhaps the most dangerous adversary of the electric grid. A Coronal Mass Ejection from the Sun would have the same effect as an EMP, but on a global scale. A CME is an ejection of particles from the sun, also known as a solar flare. These happen quite often. The last major CME event to hit the Earth was in 1859. When it hit, there were reports of sparks shooting off telegraph wires in telegraph stations. A CME event today could shut down electronic devices worldwide.

Cyber- As we saw with Stuxnet, SCADA systems are vulnerable to cyber-attacks. Attacking the SCADA systems that run the electric grid could cause severe physical damage and shutdown significant portions of the system.

Physical- Since 2013 there have been two attacks on electric substations. One in Metcalf, California and another in rural Utah. In both attacks the HVTs were targeted with rifles and caused temporary shutdowns.

Clearly the electric grid is the most important of the sixteen infrastructure sectors the Department of Homeland Security declared critical. Without electricity the banking system fails, without electricity the healthcare industry becomes non-existent, and without electricity there is no way to pump water to homes and businesses.

The fight about whether or not to spend the money is over, and we lost that fight. The fight now must be about spending it on one-time projects that are not added to the baseline budget in the future. We can choose to spend the money on needed projects, or we can let the bureaucrats make that decision for us. If we’re going to spend the money anyway, Congress should include protecting the electric grid as a one-time project in the upcoming budget as part of the increased domestic spending.

Printus LeBlanc is a contributing editor at Americans for Limited Government.

]]>http://netrightdaily.com/2018/02/going-spend-money-anyway-lets-spend-harden-electric-grid-emp/feed/0Regulation entering mentally ill receiving federal disability into FBI gun database would NOT have prevented massacre in Parkland, Fla.http://netrightdaily.com/2018/02/regulation-entering-mentally-ill-receiving-federal-disability-fbi-gun-database-not-prevented-massacre-parkland-fla/
http://netrightdaily.com/2018/02/regulation-entering-mentally-ill-receiving-federal-disability-fbi-gun-database-not-prevented-massacre-parkland-fla/#respondFri, 16 Feb 2018 20:28:28 +0000http://netrightdaily.com/?p=41338By Robert Romano 17 people are dead in Parkland, Fla. because of the heinous actions of one Nikolas Cruz, who opened fire at the high school there. This is a national tragedy, and we all share the burden together. Cruz must be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. He is responsible for these murders. The victims are not […]

17 people are dead in Parkland, Fla. because of the heinous actions of one Nikolas Cruz, who opened fire at the high school there.

This is a national tragedy, and we all share the burden together. Cruz must be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. He is responsible for these murders.

The victims are not — repeat, not — dead because of a regulation Congress rescinded in 2017 under the Congressional Review Act, “Implementation of the NICS Improvement Amendments Act of 2007” that had to do with certain individuals’ names with mental illness being entered into the FBI database for background checks barring the purchase of firearms.

Annalisa Merelli and Heather Timmons at Quartz wrote, “By signing the law, Trump made it easier for an estimated 75,000 mentally unstable people to buy weapons.”

Inae Oh wrote, “School officials reportedly identified Cruz as a potential threat who had demonstrated a fixation on guns. Almost exactly a year ago, Trump signed a law to revoke an Obama-era gun regulation that made it more difficult for those with mental illnesses to acquire guns.”

Now, to be fair, nowhere do Merelli, Timmons and Oh actually write that the regulation would have applied to Cruz.

Still, these articles and others, which are being widelycirculated on social media such as Facebook and Twitter, have their readers convinced, wrongly, that the regulation Congress rescinded would have somehow stopped Cruz from purchasing his firearm.

There’s only one problem. It wouldn’t have. It’s a monstrous lie. Fake news.

Those making political hay out of that regulation in the wake of the Parkland massacre are in effect diverting blame from where it belongs, on Cruz.

For an individual to have qualified for being entered into the firearm database, the regulation states he or she must have “receive[d] Disability Insurance benefits under title II of the Social Security Act (Act) or Supplemental Security Income (SSI) payments under title XVI of the Act and who also meet certain other criteria, including an award of benefits based on a finding that the individual’s mental impairment meets or medically equals the requirements of section 12.00 of the Listing of Impairments (Listings) and receipt of benefits through a representative payee.”

However, nobody has presented any evidence that Nikolas Cruz was either receiving Disability Insurance or Supplemental Security Income for treatment of any of those disorders, let alone that he required someone else to file for it on his behalf, which is the lynchpin for the regulation.

Again, you have to be so impaired by your disorder, that somebody had to file for your Disability or Supplemental Security Income on your behalf, and only then would you be entered into the database as a red flag against a firearms purchase.

Federal law also bars firearms purchases by anyone who has been involuntarily committed to a mental institution. Here, Cruz, did not meet that criterium either. Nor was he ever adjudicated by a court as having a mental disorder.

Neither anything in law presently nor under the rescinded regulation would have stopped Cruz’ right to go and purchase the gun he used to commit the murders. Congress repealing that regulation simply had nothing to do with the case of Cruz.

Agree or disagree with those laws, or even with the Fifth Amendment, which states no person shall be denied constitutional rights without having been convicted of a crime, the facts are the facts. You don’t get to shape them to suit a partisan political point.

Gun control regulations, such as the one that Congress rescinded via the Congressional Review Act, are not omniscient. They are not the precogs in Minority Report.

The person responsible for those murders is Cruz, and nothing in the law could have prevented his gun purchase. He should be prosecuted, and if convicted, given the harshest possible sentence. No not guilty verdict for reasons of insanity. He should be held accountable.

Maybe if we want to stop school shooters, we should shoot them first. Post armed guards at schools. Then at least people will have a fighting chance. Make it a hard target and these attacks will be deterred.

But let us not delude ourselves. No matter what the social justice warriors on Facebook will have you believe, if the regulation in question had remained in effect, Cruz still would have never been entered into the federal database for background checks barring firearms purchases. It’s simply not true.

Robert Romano is the Vice President of Public Policy at Americans for Limited Government.

]]>http://netrightdaily.com/2018/02/regulation-entering-mentally-ill-receiving-federal-disability-fbi-gun-database-not-prevented-massacre-parkland-fla/feed/0160 million-plus Americans see more money in pay checks thanks to Trump tax cutshttp://netrightdaily.com/2018/02/160-million-plus-americans-see-money-pay-checks-thanks-trump-tax-cuts/
http://netrightdaily.com/2018/02/160-million-plus-americans-see-money-pay-checks-thanks-trump-tax-cuts/#respondFri, 16 Feb 2018 13:12:17 +0000http://netrightdaily.com/?p=41327By Robert Romano Feb. 15 has passed and the IRS is complete with processing the new withholding tables that take into account the new tax cuts enacted by Congress and President Donald Trump. If all has gone according plan, your employer has applied the new rates — full disclosure: my employer has — and about 80 percent of you should […]

If all has gone according plan, your employer has applied the new rates — full disclosure: my employer has — and about 80 percent of you should be seeing a tax cut in your paycheck. Out of 200 million or so taxpayers, that is 160 million people or so, who are now be feeling the benefits of the Trump tax cuts.

Overall, the lower rates will account for $94 billion of additional pay for Americans in 2018 on the individual side of the ledge before deductions, or about $7.8 billion extra a month, according to the Joint Committee on Taxation. In 2019, that will jump up to more than $135 billion, or $11.3 billion a month.

That should provide nice improvement to the economy, which is more great news for the American people. Gross Domestic Product has not grown above an inflation-adjusted 4 percent since 2000 and not above 3 percent since 2005.

If anything might help increase how much we spend, it’s giving people back more of their hard-earned tax dollars. That’s a real stimulus.

The biggest boost could come on the business side of things, with the corporate rate being lowered to 21 percent below the global average. That will be worth $101 billion in 2018, and $125 billion in 2019.

Repatriation also looms large, with trillions of dollars of foreign earnings kept overseas expected to be repatriated over the coming years. Apple alone said it would repatriate $350 billion over the next five years and create 20,000 jobs here.

All of this should help increase growth, which can have an economy-wide job-creating effect. As growth has slowed, so has the rate of working age Americans entering the labor force.

It’s all prospective, but now there is real reason to be hopeful that those numbers start to move into the right column. But there are no guarantees. In the 1980s, the Reagan tax cuts became effective Aug. 1981, but you know what happened? There was a big, ol’ recession, which had already begun in July 1981 when the business cycle peaked. Unemployment spiked and growth contracted.

The headwinds at the time including sky-high interest rates as the Federal Reserve sought to slay the inflation dragon from the 1970s. Once the dust settled, however, in 1983 and beyond, the economy roared.

There are some signs that in the U.S. we have once again reached or are ready to reach the end of the business cycle. The stock market, particularly, the Dow Jones Industrial Average peaked above 26,000 and now is in a corrective mode.

On the other hand, interest rates have not yet inverted, that is, the distance between long-term and short-term interest rates. In fact, the 10-year, 2-year constant maturity has actually risen in 2018. Usually, the business cycle ends sometime after the yield curve is inverted, meaning the short-term interest rate was higher than the long-term interest rate. Right now, we’re not there yet. That might be bullish in 2018 if there’s another rally.

Either way, whether the business cycle is over or has a little more juice left, thanks to the Trump tax cuts, about 160 million Americans will have more cash to spend and invest to take advantage of hopefully the next boom, even if there is a major correction first. Hang tight.

Robert Romano is the Vice President of Public Policy at Americans for Limited Government.

]]>http://netrightdaily.com/2018/02/160-million-plus-americans-see-money-pay-checks-thanks-trump-tax-cuts/feed/0Jeff Sessions is trying to stop the largest jailbreak in historyhttp://netrightdaily.com/2018/02/jeff-sessions-trying-stop-largest-jailbreak-history/
http://netrightdaily.com/2018/02/jeff-sessions-trying-stop-largest-jailbreak-history/#respondFri, 16 Feb 2018 13:09:14 +0000http://netrightdaily.com/?p=41325By Natalia Castro The Senate is planning a jailbreak, again. It has been over two years since Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley introduced the Sentencing Reform and Corrections Act of 2015, which aimed at reducing criminal justice costs by reducing the sentences of convicted criminals. Now, Grassley is reintroducing this measure in a renewed effort for comprehensive criminal justice reform. But […]

The Senate is planning a jailbreak, again. It has been over two years since Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley introduced the Sentencing Reform and Corrections Act of 2015, which aimed at reducing criminal justice costs by reducing the sentences of convicted criminals. Now, Grassley is reintroducing this measure in a renewed effort for comprehensive criminal justice reform. But just as this bill would have done years ago, this legislation will only put the American people in danger.

The Act reduces sentences for drug felonies both in the future and retroactively. It also limits the application of 10-year mandatory minimum laws by giving judges greater discretion over sentencing. As a Senator in 2015, our current Attorney General Jeff Sessions stood starkly opposed to this legislation, a call which he echoes today.

At the time, Sessions explained his fears in a press release, noting that, “Congress must examine the potential far-reaching consequences of what has occurred before going any further. It is counterintuitive to further weaken penalties for drug traffickers, especially heroin traffickers, and to enable the release of several thousand more incarcerated drug and gun felons… Professor Matt DeLisi of Iowa State University testified before the Judiciary Committee that ‘releasing 1 percent of the current [federal prison] population would result in approximately 32,850 additional murders, rapes, robberies, aggravated assaults, burglaries, thefts, auto thefts, and incidents of arson.’”

One notable difference between this year’s version of the bill and the previous one is the inclusion of a section on Fentanyl. Section 109 of the legislation reduces the mandatory minimum sentencing guidelines for possession of a “mixture or substance containing a detectable amount of heroin also contains a detectable amount of” Fentanyl to only 5 years.

It is, therefore, no surprise that this week Attorney General Jeff Sessions reaffirmed his distaste for this legislation.

Sessions explained in a letter to Grassley this week, “We are in the midst of the largest drug crisis in our nation’s history… The murder rate skyrocketed by a combined 20 percent in 2015 and 2016… [S. 1917] weakens penalties for repeat, serious drug trafficker, including those who used a gun and those with significant criminal histories, and would reduce the sentences of and potentially allow for the early release of many dangerous felons in prison now, including heroin traffickers, firearms felons, and those who are members of violent drug cartels and gangs like MS-13.”

Sessions argued that the legislation would dramatically increase court backlogs and “collateral litigation over retroactive application of our laws could paralyze U.S. Attorney’s Offices for months if not years,” only making it more difficult to focus on criminals who are committing crimes.

The 2017 Sentencing and Corrections Act does not solve the problems of the criminal justice system; it will exacerbate them by reducing sentences and retroactively allowing violent criminals to re-enter society. Attorney General Jeff Sessions is leading the fight to restore law and order at the Department of Justice by removing illegal immigrants, prosecuting criminals, and combatting violence from drug trafficking and gangs; passing this legislation would be Congress undermining all of these goals.

Natalia Castro is a contributing editor at Americans for Limited Government.

]]>http://netrightdaily.com/2018/02/jeff-sessions-trying-stop-largest-jailbreak-history/feed/0Wonderland: DACA judge grants amnesty to 800,000, says President enforcing the law is ‘arbitrary’http://netrightdaily.com/2018/02/wonderland-daca-judge-grants-amnesty-800000-says-president-enforcing-law-arbitrary/
http://netrightdaily.com/2018/02/wonderland-daca-judge-grants-amnesty-800000-says-president-enforcing-law-arbitrary/#respondThu, 15 Feb 2018 13:11:01 +0000http://netrightdaily.com/?p=41318By Robert Romano U.S. District Judge Nicholas Garaufis in New York has ruled against President Donald Trump’s decision to end former President Barack Obama’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) granting amnesty to 800,000 illegal immigrants, ordering that the program be allowed to continue. Why? “The question before the court is thus not whether Defendants could end the DACA program, […]

U.S. District Judge Nicholas Garaufis in New York has ruled against President Donald Trump’s decision to end former President Barack Obama’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) granting amnesty to 800,000 illegal immigrants, ordering that the program be allowed to continue. Why?

“The question before the court is thus not whether Defendants could end the DACA program, but whether they offered legally adequate reasons for doing so,” wrote Garaufis, as if the President needs to provide a valid reason for enforcing the law.

For what it’s worth, Attorney General Jeff Sessions, in announcing the wind-down of DACA, noted that it was unconstitutional to not enforce the law on purpose. Garaufis disagreed — apparently not enforcing the law on purpose is perfectly constitutional in his rabbit hole world — and so because of the “flawed” legal rationale he held “the DACA rescission as arbitrary and capricious.”

Here, Garaufis is ruling the President enforcing the law after it was not being enforced is “arbitrary” because the President believes the Constitution commands that the law be followed. Your head spinning yet?

What about Article II, Section 3 of the Constitution, which states the president “shall take care that the laws be faithfully executed”?

What about the Supremacy Clause? Article VI states, “This constitution, and the laws of the United States which shall be made in pursuance thereof… shall be the supreme law of the land…”

Just to backtrack. Obama’s deferred action in 2012, even if you buy the dubious argument in favor of it, was an exercise of prosecutorial discretion. That, the Justice Department is allowed to prioritize which laws to enforce first within its limited scope of resources. That’s wrong, but let’s just play along.

But, when President Trump and Attorney General Sessions attempted to exercise that same discretion, and begin enforcing the law once again, the judge smacked it down calling it “arbitrary,” because, Trump and Sessions cited a constitutional requirement that the law be enforced.

Apparently, under Judge Garaufis’ ruling, entire sections of the criminal code could be “repealed” by a president simply by issuing a declaration of non-enforcement, or deferring action, and then no future president would be allowed to enforce those laws, especially if he cites a constitutional requirement for enforcing the law as the reason for restoring the rule of law.

This is not only asinine, it is a recipe for anarchy.

The Trump administration for its part is already appealing to the Supreme Court on this issue, as it should, from a similar prior ruling by another nutty judge.

The real goal of these court cases is to undermine the President’s current push to use DACA as legislative leverage to get his priorities on immigration enacted into law: ending chain migration, eliminating the visa lottery and building the southern border wall.

If DACA must be implemented — that is, not enforcing the law is now mandatory — as a matter of law, then Trump has no leverage. Democrats need only doing nothing and they’ll get much of what they want.

It is hard to overstate how sick and twisted this really is.

And it underscores why Congress should take up legislation by U.S. Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.) post-haste, that would clarify DACA and achieve the President’s priorities on immigration. These courts need to be stopped in their tracks. Congress can bring much-needed clarity to the chaos that was caused by Obama.

With DACA, Obama opened a Pandora’s Box to potentially unlimited illegal immigration. If Judge Garaufis’ ruling stands, all that will be needed for a complete amnesty for all illegal immigrants, which can never be rescinded as a constitutional matter, is the next Democrat president simply declaring it to be so. After that, courts might then rule that it would be arbitrary to begin enforcing the law after it wasn’t.

That is, not without “legally adequate reasons.” So much for the Constitution.

This is cementing a dictatorship. One where enforcing the rule of law is arbitrary and abandoning it is the paragon of civic virtue.

Welcome to Wonderland, where up is down, down is up — and nothing will ever be the same. If this stands, the U.S. will no longer be a nation of laws, but a nation of whims, where the rule of law is a faint memory.

Robert Romano is the Vice President of Public Policy at Americans for Limited Government.

]]>http://netrightdaily.com/2018/02/wonderland-daca-judge-grants-amnesty-800000-says-president-enforcing-law-arbitrary/feed/0Permitting reform is key for economic growth, infrastructure planning, and national securityhttp://netrightdaily.com/2018/02/permitting-reform-key-economic-growth-infrastructure-planning-national-security/
http://netrightdaily.com/2018/02/permitting-reform-key-economic-growth-infrastructure-planning-national-security/#respondThu, 15 Feb 2018 13:08:18 +0000http://netrightdaily.com/?p=41315By Printus LeBlanc You may not know it, but a hearing on Capitol Hill today, in the House Natural Resources Committee, will have an impact on every American. The Subcommittee on Energy and Mineral Resources is holding a hearing on legislation introduced by Rep. Mark E. Amodei (R-Nev.), H.R. 520, the National Strategic and Critical Minerals Production Act. The U.S. […]

You may not know it, but a hearing on Capitol Hill today, in the House Natural Resources Committee, will have an impact on every American. The Subcommittee on Energy and Mineral Resources is holding a hearing on legislation introduced by Rep. Mark E. Amodei (R-Nev.), H.R. 520, the National Strategic and Critical Minerals Production Act. The U.S. has become increasingly dependent on imports of these minerals despite having an abundance of many of them. Congress and the Trump administration are looking to change the permitting process for not just these mines, but for all projects.

The world as we know it cannot exist without these critical minerals. Cobalt is one of the most essential minerals on the list. Just about every battery on the planet has cobalt in it, including cell phones and electric vehicles. The military and civilian aviation use cobalt in jet engines. Life would be very different from what we know without this mineral.

A group of elements known as rare earth elements is probably the most important. The group represents 15 elements between atomic numbers 57 and 71. The elements have unusual physical and chemical properties that give them multiple applications.

The most common use for rare earth elements is in magnets. Two magnets used extensively in military technologies are samarium cobalt (SmCo), and neodymium iron boron (NdFeB). These are powerful magnets. The NdFeB magnet is considered the world’s strongest permanent magnet. This allows a small magnet to be used instead of a larger device and aides in the miniaturization of technology. SmCo magnets are used for high-temperature applications where stability over a wide range of temperatures is essential.

satellite communications, radar, and sonar on submarines and surface ships; and

optical equipment and speakers.

It’s pretty clear we do not have a worthy Defense Department without these critical minerals. Unfortunately, the U.S. is 100 percent dependent on foreign mines to supply U.S. needs, and China supplies 97 percent of the world’s supply. Yes, that is right. The U.S. military is dependent on an adversary nation for its weapons systems.

The bill has passed the House in previous Congresses but continuously dies in the Senate. That could change with President Trump’s proposed infrastructure plan, the key of which calls for a reduction in regulations for projects. Currently, the permitting process for projects takes years and crosses multiple agencies. According to the Department of Transportation, the median length of time to complete an environmental impact study is 3.5 years, and that is just some asphalt for a road.

The process gets much more cumbersome when discussing the mining industry. The average time for final permitting approval in the U.S. is 7-10 years, while Canada and Australia average just two years. Mining consulting giant, Behre Dolbear, listed “permitting delays” as the most significant risk to mining projects. Who is willing to invest hundreds of millions in a project before even a shovel of dirt can be dug up? This is not the way to stir economic growth.

President Trump and Congress must pass permitting reform before the infrastructure bill is passed. It does no good to pass an infrastructure bill without permitting reform. If that were to happen, the money would disappear into the federal bureaucracy instead of going to the needed projects. H.R. 520 must be included in the permitting reform. In fact, the upcoming budget is the perfect place to put the legislation with the rest of the permitting reform. President Trump and the Republicans should use their leverage to press permitting reform. By putting it in the budget, it is one less thing that can be bargained away in the infrastructure negotiating process.

Printus LeBlanc is a contributing editor at Americans for Limited Government.